Celebrating Your Wins

When we reach our goal, what next…? Celebrate!

When we think about goals, it is usually a future-focused
exercise. We look ahead to what we are going to achieve next and the effort we
need to exert to get there.

I’ve written about the importance of reflection – the ‘looking-back’
part of goals. It helps us understand what worked well and identify what we can
replicate going forward.

But another aspect of goals is Celebrating Your Wins!!

Often in life I feel myself move from one task to the next.
I’m always thinking through my next challenge and problem solving how I will
overcome it. But this can be tiring at
times. It can sometimes feel as though I’m always needing to push myself out of
my comfort zone, expending energy and time to get stuff done.

What can help build momentum, energy and inspiration is celebrating
your wins. Acknowledging your achievements reinforces the trust in your talents
and abilities. It is also fun! What
better way to finish a goal, than to celebrate that fact that you achieved it?

Some ways that I celebrate are to:

Reward myself – I set a challenge and reward my
progress on the way, for example if I go to the gym for 4 days a week for a
month, I can buy myself a new gym top.

Keep track of it – I have a folder in my email
just for feedback I have received. While this is not necessarily me celebrating
my success – it is another’s recognition of my contribution or effort – I like
having it as a go-to feel good place. Sometimes there’s just days that we need
to pick ourselves up, and reviewing our past successes is one of the ways we
can do this.

Tell people – not in a bragging way, but in a ‘I am proud of myself’ way. I like sharing
my stories with others and feeling the warmth of their encouragement in
recognising my wins.

How are others’ celebrating wins?

Through the Community of Confidence series, I ask other confident women how they celebrate success. Here’s what they have shared:

My husband and I are both big on celebrating our
successes and that of our family. It usually involves a fave dinner or lunch
out.

My family is a massive support and so we always
celebrate each other’s wins together with food, laughter and of course there’s
alcohol involved.

Going out to eat and participating in arts and
crafts are my favorite ways to celebrate my achievements.

First, I give myself a big round of applause.
Always clap for yourself! It’s so important to pause and take a moment to
celebrate our successes. We are so conditioned to just move onto the next
thing, without taking a moment to appreciate all that we have done to get to
where we are. Celebrating the success and treating yourself like a winner makes
that feeling addictive, and a driver to go for it again instead of burning out.
At the end of each goal, I set a reward for myself, and don’t allow that to be
realized until the goal is. So I’ll buy the thing, or go to the place. Or, I
celebrate with the people who have been with me along the journey to achieve
that goal. It strengthens the relationships I have, but also allows me to be
grateful to those along the way.

I acknowledge them, write them down, refer to
them when feeling in doubt. I reward myself by doing something I enjoy and I
communicate my wins to my social network.

It always starts with a gracious thank you to my
support network – and then followed by a wonderful meal with my loved ones!

I acknowledge my courage and allow the feeling
of being so proud of myself to linger. I think about how far I’ve come and tell
myself I’m so proud of you. I listen to loud music and dance and let those
feelings stay a while 🙂

I celebrate my wins by sharing them with my
loved ones, or I reward myself with something fun or tasty.

The themes that come out of these ideas is eating, such as a
dinner out, and sharing with friends or family.

It makes sense, our loved ones are our biggest fans and supporters. What a lovely way to celebrate – sharing it with those who matter most to us. And those who have seen the effort, the sacrifice, the courage and determination to get to the other side of our goal.

How do you like to celebrate your wins? Let me know in the
comments below. I’d love to know.